Teenagers’ Language Sounds like a Mumbo Jumbo?!!

I believe that most moms and dads would try hard to understand and communicate with their children as they grow up. When their children first came to this world, parents might naturally use some kind of “baby talk” which is so-called a “child-directed speech” that is characterized as slower rate of speech, higher tone of voice, much shorter and simpler forms of sentences than normal grownup talks. As claimed in the psychological theory of learning, children would mimic, practice and receive feedback from people around through the hundreds of thousands of hearing the sounds of words from parents or care-givers. As they grow up, their language is influenced by more people (e.g., friends) in a broader environment outside their home boundary through daily interactions. Perfectly natural and wonderful process of learning a language, isn’t it? However, once they turn teenaged years, parents may slowly feel frustrated or confused by the way their young ones use the language filled with a ton of expressions that seem VERY GREEK to mom and dad. The situation could be worse if you were ESL parents whose children have picked up English as if it was their mother tongue as a child.

I would like to introduce you to some of the frequently used words by teens so that you’d become a better communicator in your family! ;-)

-          hit someone up with ….: (verb) to ask someone for something   e.g., Will you hit me up with a bag of chips?

-          bae: (noun) babe/ loved one/ standing for “Before Anyone Else”      e.g., This is my bae, Jessica. 

-          turn up: (verb) *Be careful with this expression. It means “Let’s get wild and have fun!” Quite often times, “Turn up!” is supposed to mean “to have fun with drugs or alcohol”

-          extra: (adjective) to behave in a way on occassion or consistantly in a way that is deemed unnecessary or inappropriate or when someone does something that is just unecessary and over the top         

e.g., Mom, please don’t use the hand sanitizer each time you handshake with someone. You’re being so extra!

-          fob: (noun) Fresh Off the Boat. This word refers to immigrants with somewhat pejorative/ negative connotation. The immigrants who speak their native languages fluently, do not have any non-Asian friends, whose parents do not speak any English, get extremely good grades in school, cannot dance, whose fashion sense comes from whatever country they are from and incorporate nothing from American fashion into their wardrobe

-          thirsty: (adjective) This expression here doesn’t have its original/ literal meaning, but describes the person who tries to get attention and often in desperate and not very attractive ways. 

e.g., "I can't believe she acted that way!. She's just thirsty."

-          whipped: (adjective) being completely controlled by one’s girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse. In most cases a guy being completely controlled by his girlfriend or wife.

e.g., Damn! Does Peter ever make his own decisions on anything? He is whipped!

     

-          snatched: (adjective) looking good

e.g., Look at her new hairdo! It looks snatched!

-          squad: (noun) crew or an informal group of individuals with a common identity and a sense of solidarity. The term is a bit flashy and is more likely to be heard in hip-hop lyrics than in spoken conversation

e.g., I’m hanging out with my squad at the mall tonight.

-          throw shade at ….: (verb) to talk trash or speak ill about a friend or aquaintance, to publicly denounce or disrespect. When throwing shade it's obvious to on-lookers that the thrower, and not the throwee, is the uncool one

e.g., Leon always throws shade at people, which has made him a loner that nobody wants to be around